Zack Meisel, The Athletic’s Cleveland Indians writer, saw the team’s pitchers talking trash to one another during a fielding drill and decided to ask them a simple question: which of the team’s pitchers is the best athlete?

After some deliberation, the pitchers decided that starter Mike Clevinger was the best out of the bunch. Shane Bieber qualified the decision by saying Clevinger is a “combine athlete” who “doesn’t look very athletic” when standing in the batters’ box. Clevinger, who is a weirdo, disputed that caveat by way of a hypothetical in which dogs use opposable thumbs, which they do not have, to milk other animals’ nipples.

“My exact comment to him,” Clevinger said, “is, ‘OK, put LeBron James in a batter’s box. Is he not an athlete? Because I guarantee he won’t look pretty against big-league pitching. Is he still an athlete? He’s still the best in the world, actually.’ So his argument’s not that logical. It’s like a vegan saying you can’t drink milk — do animals drink other animals’ milk? No, because they don’t have the thumbs to milk their nipples. Of course not. But if they did, do you know what a dog would be doing every fucking day?”﻿

At the risk of hitting someone only mildly connected to this comment with a stray, I think it’s safe to say that the Trevor Bauer influence on Clevinger’s brain is clear, here. Not only is there a waft of internet-scented Logic And Reason that blows through midway, but Clevinger also uses a frequent target of red-pilled dopes (vegans) to make...whatever this comparison is. It seems clear that Clevinger is projecting a desire to drink the milk of every animal straight from the nipple from human vegans onto dogs, which have thumbs in this scenario. Also what am I even typing right now.